City councilman questions possible police overtime abuse

The 11 News I-Team has raised new questions about the case of two Baltimore City police commanders under investigation for months for possible overtime abuse.

On Wednesday, a city councilman said he wanted to conduct his own investigation after city prosecutors decided not to pursue the case that involved police raiding their own offices as part of the investigation.

"My No. 1 concern is to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used in the proper manner," said Councilman Brandon Scott, D-2nd District.

Scott said he was surprised and concerned that the city state's attorney ended the criminal investigation of two deputy majors that began when Scott himself got the tip and turned it over to authorities.

In late June, the city's Internal Affairs investigators raided the offices of a specialized police unit seeking payroll records. Included in the investigation was the allegation that one of the commanders double-dipped by submitting duplicate overtime slips for the same overtime assignment more than a half-dozen times.

The state's attorney said no crime was committed, but Scott said he'll use the City Council process to get the records himself.

"We want to see all the documents involved in this case so the public can know what was going on, and just to ensure that there was no wrongdoing and to get a better feeling and more insight into what actually happened in this case," the councilman said.

Scott questioned whether the state's attorney, Gregg Bernstein, should have made the call in the case.

As a private defense attorney, Bernstein represented one of the two commanders involved in the investigation, Robert Quick, when Quick was sued for his role in a controversial fatal police-involved shooting in 1999. A spokesman for Bernstein said there was no conflict.

The I-Team has learned that, at the same time as the overtime case, there was a separate Internal Affairs investigation surrounding the conduct of the other commander, Ian Dombroski.

Dombroski was the main officer in a federal drug case, I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said. Defense lawyers for the suspect argued that a couple of days before trial, Dombroski's fellow officers approached witnesses and told them it would be in their best interest not to testify. The federal case was later dropped.

In that drug case, Dombroski claimed he used binoculars on a rooftop to watch the suspect sell drugs on the street, but the suspect produced records showing he was on his computer at the time, posting on Facebook.